Triangle Attack!

PI · Post by PI » Sat Jan 03, 2009 8:41 pm

Hello guys,

I hope one could help me with my graphics-related problem.

The story is that approx. 2 months ago when my younger brother restarted WindowsXP,
a strange, short error message popped up saying something about a CMOS error or such.

Unfortunately I haven't seen this message, but anyway, from then, all the DirectX related
3D applictions has graphical glitches. OpenGL apps seems to run fine.

There are large triangles flickering everywhere, and cannot see a thing.

It seems to me as if there would be some memory-management problem or some parts of the memory would be damaged.

I've never seen such, but there were many things that could go wrong, here's a list what we did already, and nothing changed:
- bought a new videocard (it's an ATI Radeon HD 4670 512Mb)
- tried to plug in/out RAM modules (2 Gb), and tried different types
- reinstalled WindowsXP, tried it with SP2, and SP3
- installed Windows Vista, also tried with SP1
- deleted everything related to DirectX and reinstalled it, from 8.1 to 9.0c, latest
- updated videocard drivers, tried with older and latest versions as well
- updated BIOS, and also updated it from Vista

We've tested with many games, but here are some screenies from GTA4 and from Battlefield2:

GTA4 error 1
GTA4 error 2
GTA4 error 3
GTA4 error 4
GTA4 error 5

Battlefield2 error 1
Battlefield2 error 2
Battlefield2 error 3
Battlefield2 error 4
Battlefield2 error 5
Battlefield2 error 6

Does anybody know what could cause this?
Could anybody help?

Thank you in advance,
PI

edit: I've forgot to mention that the quickest test was always to run the 12. Terrain Example (Irrlicht 1.5) (only this example had a problem) which uses the new 32 bit indices, right?

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 8:59 pm

If it was a CMOS error, then the battery may be dying. Try replacing it. It could also be because your CMOS battery is dying that the BIOS loses all it's configurations and resets itself. It also might be overheating, what are the temps?

PI · Post by PI » Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:28 pm

Thanks for your answer, Twilight17!

twilight17 wrote:If it was a CMOS error, then the battery may be dying. Try replacing it. It could also be because your CMOS battery is dying that the BIOS loses all it's configurations and resets itself.

... but shouldn't it warn me about it, every time I restart my computer? I'll try it tomorrow, anyway!

twilight17 wrote:It also might be overheating, what are the temps?

They're quite normal: core0 and core1 are 42C, the hard drive is 40C.

Cheers,
PI

Sylence · Post by **Sylence** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:40 pm

40C for a harddrive doesn't seem normal to me.
My are 28C to 32C where the one that is 32C is directly next to my gfx card.

However the screens look definetly like a problem with your graphics card. What are the temps of the card?

I had this problems a few years ago with a Radeon 9500 when the cooler was broken and card was overheating everytime I played games. When you overclock a card too much these problems apear as well.

Maybe your new card is also broken?

Halan · Post by **Halan** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 11:01 pm

what about the GPU-Temperature?

who needs DirectX anyways

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:13 am

40C is okay for a hard drive, mine right now is actually at 38C.

The motherboard could also be damaged somewhere: scraped, dented, or cracked. Maybe check for anything wrong on the mobo itself.

PI · Post by PI » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:48 pm

Thank you guys, I've done everything:

Twilight17, I've checked the battery, it's 3.07 Volts, seems to be ok, I've put it back and re-set everything.
I've also put the wires to the other side of the fan, but these didn't help, unfortunately.
I've checked the motherboard but couldn't see anything wrong.

Sylence and Halan, this is an older HDD, maybe that's the reason for this.
According to GPU-Z, the temp is 43C, and when playing with a game, it's 48C. I think it's ok. The videocard is not overclocked.
Are you suggesting that my new videocard has the very same problem as the old one did? That would be more than a bad trick from the life to stop me playing games, however, it works

So... I've played again and and again with different settings and games, and it's still being the same.

Any more tips?

Thank you for your help anyway, I really appriciate it!
Cheers,
PI

bitplane · Post by **bitplane** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:18 pm

Two graphics cards show exactly the same problem, which only happens in Direct3D not OpenGL? My first guess would be a driver problem, you should consider reinstalling Windows to be 100% sure.
If this doesn't work then it must be some sort of strange hardware problem, the two most likely suspects are RAM (test with Memtest86 boot CD) and your motherboard. Since you had some kind of CMOS warning, flashing your BIOS may help but you should do this last of all as you might fry your mobo.

roelor · Post by **roelor** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:28 pm

I had this two once, (it was just one game though) when playing a game that was way to heavy for my pc, this bug appeared. also I had an ati card. (radeon 9600)

PI · Post by PI » Tue Jan 06, 2009 4:48 pm

Thanks Bitplane and Roelor, what I'm going to do is to get an other motherboard from somebody and try it, but I only have time for it on the weekend. I'll let you know if it worked

Cheers,
PI

roelor · Post by **roelor** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 6:57 pm

Good luck!

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 9:39 pm

You motherboard might have a broken capacitor, so switching it out will help a lot. Report back when you're done

Dorth · Post by **Dorth** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:12 pm

oooooohhhh, 'sploded capacitors, those are nasty. But I like the sound they make when they pop

rooly · Post by **rooly** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 12:52 am

i've actually seen this before on my school's gamelab computers. it only seems to happen to valve games, but then again, those are the only ones that are on those machines. In what i've seen, this is very highly likely related to heat issues.

funny thing is, these machines have nvidia geforce 7 series cards. and it only happens in directx mode under heavy strain for a long duration. you may want to check how well your case is ventilated and get some kind of video card temp moniter.

btw, when you bought a new video card, was it an upgrade or just a new one of the same type.

PI · Post by PI » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:06 am

Hello guys,

Sorry for the late reply. Finally I've had time and borrowed a PC from a relative, and started replacing it's elements one by one.

No question, it was the motherboard. So I'll need to buy a new one.
Once it has been replaced, all the graphical glitches were gone.

So, thank you all for your patience and for the tips, I've really appreciated them! Maybe this topic once will be useful for somebody else, too.

Regards,
PI